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“Yeah. So, I’ve heard. Anyway, I came home tonight from the meeting and he’s f…” He stopped himself from cussing. He wasn’t sure how much Haize would be comfortable with. “He’s having sex with a woman right on the couch. Whiskey bottles, beer cans, all over the place.”
“Oh no,” she replied. “That’s awful. And your brother knows your challenges with it, right?"
"He does. My whole fu... my whole family has those challenges if that’s what you wanna call it.” He took another sip. “Anyway, he offered to call her sister over for me. Didn’t think about anything else. The woman is sitting there, bare ass naked like I’m not even in the room. I had to get outta there.”
“That’s terrible. Sounds like you made a good choice to leave.”
Michael shook his head. “No. I drove right to the bar. I could taste the booze on my tongue. I didn’t go in.” He looked her in the eye, her blue eyes wide and bright as she listened to him. “I sat in the parking lot and weighed my options. Thought about each consequence. That’s when I felt your note in my pocket. The one where you wrote your number down. And here we sit.” He spread his hands, looking around the quiet diner. There were only two other patrons, sitting far enough away they couldn’t hear the conversation.
“You did everything right, Mikey. You did.” She reached out and patted his hands. “It would’ve been easy to just walk in that bar and lose control. It must’ve been hard to reach out to me. Asking for help is what we all struggle with.”
“It’s so funny.” He shook his head.
“What’s funny?”
“The old me would’ve taken my brother up on it. Call the sister over, fu…” He looked at Haize and scoffed. Stopping himself from cussing was difficult. “Screwed her brains out and sent her on her way.”
“It’s okay to say fuck, Mikey.” Haize smirked and stirred her coffee. “It’s fucking okay to say fuck, hell, damn, shit, bitch…” She laughed, her smile brightening up her face. “I work with clients that say it all the time. I say it all the time,” she continued, patting her chest. “How can you be open and honest if you can’t say what you want to?”
“I just wasn’t sure. I’m offensive to a lot of people.”
Her eyes searched his for a second. “Offensive isn’t the word I’d use. But I guess I come off as a prude to you.”
Prude was exactly what he saw. A wholesome, beautiful woman who had good intentions for everyone. “If you only knew the real me, the man I was before prison, you’d run from me like I was a burning building.”
“You said that at the meeting, too. And if you only knew my past, prude, and Haize would never be used in the same sentence. Believe me.”
“That’s the second time today you’ve mentioned your past, only with no details.”
“And for now, that’s how it’ll stay. Tonight is about you. It’s about how you did everything right by not going into the bar, getting away from your brother, and calling me. You prevented a relapse. You prevented a revocation.”
“You do know a lot about this,” Michael replied, finishing his coffee. “I appreciate it.”
“This life is all I know. I’ve been on both sides of it.” She patted his hands again. “Do you feel comfortable going back to your brother’s house tonight?”
“Don’t really have any other option.” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll make a beeline straight to my room.” He checked his watch. It was getting close to his curfew time, and with the way his luck went, it’d be a night Rosie decided to stop by.
“You need to have a talk with him, Mikey.”
“A talk?”
“About respect. About keeping you in mind. If this is gonna work, your brother has to pull his weight, too.”
“He’s letting me live there. He’s helping. I can’t ask for him to change his lifestyle for me.”
“Sounds to me like if he doesn’t change his lifestyle, he’s on the prison pipeline himself.”
“My whole family is on that pipeline.” Michael ducked his head and grabbed his hat. “I’ve kept you out long enough. Thank you for coming here to talk to me.” He pulled a five-dollar bill from his wallet and set it on the edge of the table. “I look forward to our next meeting.”
“Me, too. And this was no problem. If it was, I’d have never given you my number.”
“The meetings are more than just getting a signature now. And I mean that.” He slid from the booth and walked her to her car. “See you soon.”
He wasn’t sure if he should hug her, shake her hand, or just let her get in her car. Thankfully, she solved the problem by pulling him for a tight hug, arms wrapping around his shoulders. He returned the gesture, holding her slender body close, taking her in. He wasn’t usually a hugger and rarely enjoyed the embrace. A hug usually meant peeling off each other’s clothes and diving right into bed.
She pulled away first, her blue eyes staring into his. “See you soon, Mikey. Good job tonight.”
He saw the car in the driveway. The same one as when he came home the first time. Parking his brother’s truck, he gripped the steering wheel and closed his eyes. He tried to channel everything he and Haize had talked about. His focus went immediately to those blue eyes – he got lost in them, and he shook the feelings aside. Now wasn’t the time to feel lust toward someone else. He was in a fragile state of his recovery, and allowing those emotions would taint the well.
